There's been a lot of talk about naked streets. It started in Holland, where they like naked things, but now it could be heading for our doorstep.

The idea is that if you take away some traffic lights, road markings and road signs, the traffic flows more freely. Drivers start using their brains instead of waiting to be told what to do, and apparently this has worked well in Holland and, more recently, Germany.

Nice theory. But how would it work in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where the council is considering 'decluttering' Exhibition Road, following the success of a tidying up of Kensington High Street?

I'm sure we'd all like to see fewer signs: many junctions in towns and cities around Britain can be incredibly confusing the first time you use them, simply because you're overloaded with information, instructions and advice.

But the idea that taking away some of restrictions will produce a self-regulating stream of traffic, made up of courteous, considerate road users, seems like a hopelessly irrelevant fantasy. That particular horse has long since bolted. Drivers in parts of London, and doubtless other places too, abandoned even a token adherence to the Highway Code ages ago.

I have zero scientific evidence to back this up, but I think that when the sheer volume of traffic forces the average speed to fall below walking pace, drivers instinctively stop regarding themselves as drivers and start behaving like they do when they're pedestrians, albeit pedestrians weighing a ton or two.

See a gap, you go for it. No right turn? Doesn't apply to me. If you think you can get away with going the wrong way up a one-way street, well, why not? No parking spaces? Then you double park.

And if through some freakish blip the road ahead is clear and you're actually in a position to break the speed limit then you do, unless you can see a Gatso. Anarchy in the UK? Yes, it is.